#I know this isn’t a direct repeating of the line but the thematic parallels are definitely there

[howlerbat]

Black Sails S1E7 and S4E7

[robin-josephette-biden]

A Statement Through Horror: BDG and YouTube

In his video announcing his departure from Polygon Bryan David Gilbert [BDG] stated, “I want to make things that one day people will make a show like unraveled about.” [Paraphrasing here]. Since that announcement he has made some of the most interesting and engaging comedy videos on the platform. On Bryan’s channel, there is a section called “bdg’s scaries” that contains three videos. The first how to make jorts was released April 27, 2019 and will not be part of this analysis, as we are focused on the other two videos. These two videos are Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss which was released on October 25, 2020 (two months before his final Unraveled video and departure from Polygon) and Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97 which was posted March 3, 2021. If you have not seen these videos yet you should stop reading immediately and go watch them both (honestly everything on his channel is amazing, especially the surprisingly compelling and personal Dances Moving! series) before continuing to read this as I will be spoiling both of them. The position of YouTube celebrity has been the source of a good bit of commentary as short form online media has become more and more central in our culture. Bryan has created two videos that I feel do an excellent job of exploring the relationship between youtuber and audience. I should also point out that this is merely my interpretation of these videos and is in no way BDG’s intended message. I’ll start by going over the first video. Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss opens with BDG outside an apartment building, standing in front of a black car. BDG points up at one of the windows and says, “Three years ago I was living in that apartment right there. Third floor, leaky windows, cockroaches, the worst.” I do not know if the real life BDG actually lived in that building, but the 3 years timeframe does line up neatly with his beginning to work at Polygon. BDG continues to bad mouth his old apartment and mentions how he has turned it all around stating, “But just last week I paid off my very first Subaru Impreza. And I own my own house in Nebraska.” This radical change in life-style he credits to, “. . . [working] from home, [making] my own hours, and [being] my own boss. And you can do it too.” I think that it is interesting that BDG’s career up to that point mirrors that of his character, going from newly graduated content creator making small videos in his apartment to one of the most popular creators on Polygon. And all that being accomplished through work that many (rightly or wrongly) would not see as fitting into the mold of the traditional 9 to 5. The idea of making millions working from home, at your own pace, and with no boss is intrinsically tied to the mystique of the YouTube celebrity. Moving into BDG’s office he explains that he makes $20k a month working on spreadsheets. A massive spreadsheet appears behind him that is dated, 01.12.88 (nothing of note happened on January 12, 1988 and the only thing that happened on December 1, 1988 is a large cyclone that struck Bangladesh, January 12, 1888 is the day of the Schoolhouse Blizzard which struck the midwestern US and killed 235 people (remember this for later)) and is filled, seemingly randomly, with garbled nonsense symbols. Many of the cells are the same as other cells and there are empty cells scattered haphazardly throughout the spreadsheet. BDG explains that he got this strategy from Dorian Smiles. In exchange for working on these spreadsheets BDG receives $10k - $20k a month (an amount that lines up pretty damn well with the amount he should be getting through his Patreon page currently, I don’t know if this was true when the video was made though) from Dorian. Wanting to know where the money is coming from BDG asks his bank and they explain that he is wiring the money to himself from another account he has. He grows confused as to the nature of this work and the disproportionately large amount of money it brings in, explicitly mentioning his confusion as to how the money is coming from someone with, “. . . my name and my voice.” and sets about to find and confront Dorian Smiles. BDG sets off for Center Nebraska, which is close to where Dorian lives (a small town in the northeast corner of Nebraska). He states that Dorian’s address hasn’t existed since 1888 (that’s a familiar year isn’t it?) when it was supposedly condemned during an enormous blizzard and is, “. . . just woods now.” The video then transitions to BDG walking through dark woods while his narration talking up the Dorian Smiles program continues becoming increasingly broken. He comes across a figure sitting in the woods that is convulsing strangely, when he calls out to it the figure turns and is him (heretofore named Dorian). Dorian slowly puts his hands over his nose and mouth while staring at BDG at which point the narration cuts out. BDG copies Dorian and when Dorian removes his hands in a flourish, BDG does the same to reveal that he no longer has a mouth. The video quickly cuts back to BDG in his office talking about the program, he asks the viewer, “Why don’t you join me?” and then sits back and smiles while that line repeats without him moving his mouth. The most pressing mystery is who Dorian Smiles is. I think the most likely answer (and one I know I am not the progenitor of) is that Dorian is a reference to The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, the story of a young man that has a portrait that ages and takes on the ravages of the debauched life its subject lives while Dorian himself does not. BDG would therefore be the unwitting recipient of that blessing, reaping massive rewards while his double, Dorian, lives in poverty and solitude. I like this explanation for Dorian, but I find it to be far more mechanical than thematic. On a metatextual level you could read that Dorian represents the character of BDG. The person that is in all of BDG’s videos, and the one with whom so much of the audience forms a parasocial relationship. In this lens the parallels with BDG’s own life make more sense. By this point in BDG’s career it is not difficult to imagine him feeling stifled creatively at work (I feel comfortable saying this given how soon after this video came out that he departed Polygon). His character had grown too large, potentially becoming alien to him, no longer reflecting the art he wanted to make and so he made a video about a distorted version of himself stealing his voice. In this way the video becomes a statement on his artistic integrity and his desire to test new boundaries and go in different directions. In hindsight, with the knowledge of his departure and then success after leaving Polygon, the video becomes almost heartwarming (if it weren’t terrifying) in the same way that a before and after picture of someone improving themselves can be. We will return to the Dorian Smiles system, but now we must move to the second video, Teaching Jake about the Camcorder, Jan '97. I’ll save you the blow by blow breakdown and aim for a quick summary instead. This video is a simple stationary shot of an old CRT tv. A VHS tape is inserted and a video of a man teaching his, evidently young, son how to use a camcorder plays. It is relatively wholesome and corny in that way that all home movies are and when it ends the tape rewinds and the segment plays again, this time with a few deviations. Over replays the father becomes aware of what is happening and begins trying to reason with Jake through the camcorder begging him to stop watching the tape and move on. The father is menaced by a large shadowy figure that does not speak or move when confronted. Eventually the father resorts to simply taking the camera and recording his own screams of pain. On the final rewind the father simply says, “Attaboy.” before calmly walking out the room and into the dark hallway, a doorway opens at the other end, filled with orange light, and the father walks through and down stairs. The final shot of the video is of the television, showing the hallway, as orange light begins to flicker in the background of the left side of the TV. The sound of the father descending the stairs transitions from the TV to diegetic and a shadow appears briefly in the light. On one level the video is clearly a statement about loss and about trauma. Jake is losing himself by watching these videos on repeat, trying in vain to relive a happier time. In that desperate desire to regain what was lost he is distorting it, making it into something it isn’t, hurting it. At the beginning the father says, “Never ever press the rewind button, otherwise you might record over a precious memory. We always keep the recording going forward . . .“ I think there is an additional, and more personal for BDG, reading however. The father is the modern character of BDG, and we, the audience, are Jake. He is pleading with us to leave the past behind and move on. This was only his 3rd video that he posted after leaving Polygon. It is a plea from him to leave the old character behind and stop trying to make one into the other. To stop obsessively comparing the new videos to the old. To let the future be the future and let the past be the past. He is telling us that his new work will not be like the old, that he has progressed past that and that now his viewers need to as well. The detachment and confusion of Earn $20K EVERY MONTH by being your own boss has transformed into a desire to move forward. But he needed to ensure that his audience was ready to come with him, and so he made a video about loss and the dangers of sinking too far into it. I know that there are some of you that feel I am reading too much of what I assume to be BDG’s thoughts and emotions into these interpretations, and I am the first to admit that I might be. In no way am I trying to say these are the only interpretations of these videos or even that they are correct. I think there is so much more of an artist that they put into their work than they realise. I do not know the mind of BDG, only he does, but these videos made me feel that I had a glimpse into the feelings of a man whose work I admire. These videos are either longer or a drastically different tone to the material he has put on his own channel and as such they stood out to me. They felt different, and they seemed to ask for a different level of scrutiny. On some level maybe BDGs videos can not be divorced from the story of BDG as a content creator, the same as any modern internet semi-celebrity, or indeed any artist. I guess there was also a part of me that wanted to answer the call to action I heard when BDG left Polygon, to unravel his work. I hope in some small way I’ve been able to do that.

[bananaofswifts]

Your guide to the singer-songwriter’s surprise follow-up to Folklore.

By

CARL WILSON

When everything’s clicking for Taylor Swift, the risk is that she’s going to push it too far and overtax the public appetite. On “Mirrorball” from Folklore, she sings, with admirable self-knowledge, “I’ve never been a natural/ All I do is try, try, try.” So when I woke up yesterday to the news that at midnight she was going to repeat the trick she pulled off with Folklore in July—surprise-releasing an album of moody pop-folk songs remote-recorded in quarantine with Aaron Dessner of the National as well as her longtime producer Jack Antonoff—I was apprehensive. Would she trip back into the pattern of overexposure and backlash that happened between 1989 and Reputation?

Listening to the new Evermore, though, that doesn’t feel like such a threat. A better parallel might be to the “Side B” albums that Carly Rae Jepsen put out after both Emotion and Dedicated, springing simply out of the artist’s and her fans’ mutual enthusiasm. Or, closer to Swift’s own impulses here, publishing an author’s book of short stories soon after a successful novel. Lockdown has been a huge challenge for musicians in general, but it liberated Swift from the near-perpetual touring and publicity grind she’s been on since she was a teen, and from her sense of obligation to turn out music that revs up stadium crowds and radio programmers. Swift has always seemed most herself as the precociously talented songwriter; the pop-star side is where her try-hard, A-student awkwardness surfaces most. Quarantine came as a stretch of time to focus mainly on her maturing craft (she turns 31 on Sunday), to workshop and to woodshed. When Evermore was announced, she said that she and her collaborators—clearly mostly Dessner, who co-writes and/or co-produces all but one of these 15 songs—simply didn’t want to stop writing after Folklore.

This record further emphasizes her leap away from autobiography into songs that are either pure fictions or else lyrically symbolic in ways that don’t act as romans à clef. On Folklore, that came with the thrill of a breakthrough. Here, she fine-tunes the approach, with the result that Evermore feels like an anthology, with less of an integrated emotional throughline. But that it doesn’t feel as significant as Folklore is also its virtue. Lowered stakes offer permission to play around, to joke, to give fewer fucks—and this album definitely has the best swearing in Swift’s entire oeuvre.

Because it’s nearly all Dessner overseeing production and arrangements, there isn’t the stylistic variety that Antonoff’s greater presence brought to Folklore. However, Swift and Dessner seem to have realized that the maximalist-minimalism that dominated Folklore, with layers upon layers of restrained instrumental lines for the sake of atmosphere, was too much of a good thing. There are more breaks in the ambience on Evermore, the way there was with Folklore’s “Betty,” the countryish song that was among many listener’s favorites. But there are still moments that hazard misty lugubriousness, and perhaps with reduced reward.

Overall, people who loved Folklore will at least like Evermore too, and the minority of Swift appreciators who disapproved may even warm up to more of the sounds here. I considered doing a track-by-track comparison between the two albums, but that seemed a smidgen pathological. Instead, here is a blatantly premature Day 1 rundown of the new songs as I hear them.

A pleasant yet forgettable starting place, “Willow” has mild “tropical house” accents that recall Ed Sheeran songs of yesteryear, as well as the prolix mixed metaphors Swift can be prone to when she’s not telling a linear story. But not too severely. I like the invitation to a prospective lover to “wreck my plans.” I’m less sure why “I come back stronger than a ’90s trend” belongs in this particular song, though it’s witty. “Willow” is more fun as a video (a direct sequel to Folklore’s “Cardigan” video) than as a lead track, but I’m not mad at it here either.

Written with “William Bowery”—the pseudonym of Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, as she’s recently confirmed—this is the first of the full story songs on Evermore, in this case a woman describing having walked away from her partner on the night he planned to propose. The music is a little floaty and non-propulsive, but the tale is well painted, with Swift’s protagonist willingly taking the blame for her beau’s heartbreak and shrugging off the fury of his family and friends—“she would have made such a lovely bride/ too bad she’s fucked in the head.” Swift sticks to her most habitual vocal cadences, but not much here goes to waste. Except, that is, for the title phrase, which doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial. (Unless the protagonist was drunk?) I do love the little throwaway piano filigree Dessner plays as a tag on the end.

This is the sole track Antonoff co-wrote and produced, and it’s where a subdued take on the spirit of 1989-style pop resurges with necessary energy. Swift is singing about having a crush on someone who’s too attractive, too in-demand, and relishing the fantasy but also enjoying passing it up. It includes some prime Swiftian details, like, “With my Eagles t-shirt hanging from your door,” or, “At dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit.” The line about this thirst trap’s “hair falling into place like dominos” I find much harder to picture.

This is where I really snapped to attention. After a few earlier attempts, Swift has finally written her great Christmas song, one to stand alongside “New Year’s Day” in her holiday canon. And it’s especially a great one for 2020, full of things none of us ought to do this year—go home to visit our parents, hook up with an ex, spend the weekend in their bedroom and their truck, then break their hearts again when we leave. But it’s done with sincere yuletide affection to “the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking,” and “the warmest bed I’ve ever known.” All the better, we get to revisit these characters later on the album.

On first listen, I found this one of the draggiest Dressner compositions on the record. Swift locates a specific emotional state recognizably and poignantly in this song about a woman trapped (or, she wonders, maybe not trapped?) in a relationship with an emotionally withholding, unappreciative man. But the static keyboard chord patterns and the wandering melody that might be meant to evoke a sense of disappointment and numbness risk yielding numbing and disappointing music. Still, it’s growing on me.

Featuring two members of Haim—and featuring a character named after one of them, Este—“No Body, No Crime” is a straight-up contemporary country song, specifically a twist on and tribute to the wronged-woman vengeance songs that were so popular more than a decade ago, and even more specifically “Before He Cheats,” the 2006 smash by Carrie Underwood, of which it’s a near musical clone, just downshifted a few gears. Swift’s intricate variation on the model is that the singer of the song isn’t wreaking revenge on her own husband, but on her best friend’s husband, and framing the husband’s mistress for the murder. It’s delicious, except that Swift commits the capital offence of underusing the Haim sisters purely as background singers, aside from one spoken interjection from Danielle.

This one has some of the same issues as “Tolerate It,” in that it lags too much for too long, but I did find more to focus on musically here. Lyrically and vocally, it gets the mixed emotions of a relatively amicable divorce awfully damned right, if I may speak from painfully direct experience.

This is the song sung from the POV of the small-town lover that the ambitious L.A. actress from “Tis the Damn Season”—Dorothea, it turns out—has left behind in, it turns out, Tupelo. Probably some years past that Xmas tryst, when the old flame finally has made it. “A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now,” he sings, but adds that she’s welcome back anytime: “If you’re ever tired of being known/ For who you know/ You know that you’ll always know me.” It’s produced and arranged with a welcome lack of fuss. Swift hauls out her old high-school-romance-songs vocal tone to reminisce about “skipping the prom/ just to piss off your mom,” very much in the vein of Folklore’s teen-love-triangle trilogy.

A duet with Dessner’s baritone-voiced bandmate in the National, Matt Berninger, “Coney Island” suffers from the most convoluted lyrics on Evermore (which, I wonder unkindly, might be what brought Berninger to mind?). The refrain “I’m on a beach on Coney Island, wondering where did my baby go” is a terrific tribute to classic pop, but then Swift rhymes it with “the bright lights, the merry go,” as if that’s a serviceable shorthand for merry-go-round, and says “sorry for not making you my centerfold,” as if that’s somehow a desirable relationship outcome. The comparison of the bygone affair to “the mall before the internet/ It was the one place to be” is clever but not exactly moving, and Berninger’s lines are worse. Dessner’s droning arrangement does not come to the rescue.

This song is also overrun with metaphors but mostly in an enticing, thematically fitting way, full of good Swiftian dark-fairytale grist. It’s fun to puzzle out gradually the secret that all the images are concealing—an engaged woman being drawn into a clandestine affair. And there are several very good “goddamns.”

The lyrical conceit here is great, about two gold-digging con artists whose lives of scamming are undone by their falling in love. It reminded me of the 1931 pre-Code rom-com Blonde Crazy, in which James Cagney and Joan Blondell act out a very similar storyline. And I mostly like the song, but I can’t help thinking it would come alive more if the music sounded anything like what these self-declared “cowboys” and “villains” might sing. It’s massively melancholy for the story, and Swift needs a far more winningly roguish duet partner than the snoozy Marcus Mumford. It does draw a charge from a couple of fine guitar solos, which I think are played by Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver, who will return shortly).

The drum machine comes as a refreshing novelty at this point. And while this song is mostly standard Taylor Swift torrents of romantic-conflict wordplay (full of golden gates and pedestals and dropping her swords and breaking her high heel, etc.), the pleasure comes in hearing her look back at all that and shrugging, “Long story short, it was a bad ti-i-ime,” “long story short, it was the wrong guy-uy-uy,” and finally, “long story short, I survived.” She passes along some counsel I’m sure she wishes she’d had back in the days of Reputation: “I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things/ Your nemeses will defeat themselves.” It’s a fairly slight song but an earned valedictory address.

Swift fan lore has it that she always sequences the real emotional bombshell as Track 5, but here it is at 13, her lucky number. It’s sung to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who died when Swift was in her early teens, and it manages to be utterly personal—down to the sample of Marjorie singing opera on the outro—and simultaneously utterly evocative to anyone who’s been through such grief. The bridge, full of vivid memories and fierce regrets, is the clincher.

This electroacoustic kiss-off song, loaded up with at least a fistful of gecs if not a full 100 by Dessner and co-producers BJ Burton and James McAlister, seems to be, lyrically, one of Swift’s somewhat tedious public airings of some music-industry grudge (on which, in case you don’t get it, she does not want “closure”), but, sonically, it’s a real ear-cleaner at this point on Evermore. Why she seems to shift into a quasi-British accent for fragments of it is anyone’s guess. But I’m tickled by the line, “I’m fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles.”

I’m torn about the vague imagery and vague music of the first few verses of the album’s final, title track. But when Vernon, in full multitracked upper-register Bon Iver mode, kicks in for the duet in the middle, there’s a jolt of urgency that lands the redemptive ending—whether it’s about a crisis in love or the collective crisis of the pandemic or perhaps a bit of both—and satisfyingly rounds off the album.

[alltingfinns]

A Scandal in Belgravia

So I’m back on this.

The swoosh on some sped up footage in the previously, don’t remember noticing that.

This episode’s start gets so much funnier if you read some of the fic written between this and the previous episode.

Silly song now becomes more dramatic in TRF.

What did Irene offer Jim to get him so riled up? If it’s the plot plane plan that would explain why Sherlock is needed alive. But his emotional reaction... maybe he’s already been trying to get it on his own. Indicates possibly that Jim has been looking for a way to get to Mycroft.

“You’re typing a lot.”

This montage is nicely done.

Arguing about the blog.

The pouncing on the title.

He’s so hurt. He knows ash!

“We do watch the news.”

“You said boring and switched the channel.”

First time where “people” = John.

And the hat.

“It’s time.” I never thought about the waiting period.

Ehh, Hudson called up to the next floor so John’s room? Boys?

Ha cool, a SAAB. An old one too. I’d guess a 900 model from the early nineties.

Lestrade probably makes these calls a lot.

I get Sherlock’s confusion, he’s just in a sheet it’d make sense for him to be humiliated.

Their silent conversation + John’s acceptance of the absurdity.

That was a pretty long look on Sherlock’s lap and then asking about pants.

The Swedish subtitles on Netflix just referred to John as ”kronans gosse” I love it!

John took the queen liking his blog as a point in their argument.

I always like looking at John during the sheet bit.

Mycroft and John conversing in subtext that you need to remember their original conversation from a whole series/three episodes ago. And people think johnlock is too subtextual.

They made “the woman” a work title clearly to explain why Sherlock would refer to her that way. A bit harder to work in the context from ACD canon. It would be weird if Sherlock in modern times went “a credit to your gender” for defeating him.

Sherlock’s reaction Mycroft’s veiled assertion settles the question, I think. He’s making a “damn, he’s got me there” face. Mainly because John’s presence, if we considers his previous statement. If it were just him and Mycroft he’d just say “just because I haven’t done it doesn’t mean I can’t understand it!”

Btw, in case you think my typing speed is phenomenal I am hitting pause when something gets really interesting to me.

The parallel of checking the pictures have the “obvious” reading of romantic set up. But Sherlock is still learning details of a case he has been given so another reading is that while he’s targeting her she’s targeting him.

My reading is backed up by Sherlock’s immediate demeanor. His interest in her didn’t really appear until he found out she didn’t ask for anything. Blackmailers are a dime a dozen, but someone making a point of threat against the reputation of the BRF without asking for direct compensation? That’s someone with a plan and someone who can give him the kick he feeds of from casework.

John getting the last word in only for Sherlock to get the laterer word in.

Pinching an ashtray from the aforementioned BRF, whom himself mentioned as his first client with a navy, just to make John laugh? Some things are priceless but for everything else there’s MasterCard.

Okay, I had to back up a bit but: I don’t know who’s getting these pictures for Irene, but the last one that makes her smile is focused on John. She sees Sherlock more naked in the pictures where he’s fully clothed in the back of a cab than when he was in just a sheet on the pavement.

More parallels. This is really about their similarities. Could still be considered romantic foreshadowing “they’re made of the same cloth” type.

Ah yes, punch me.

That little dialogue snippet about “punch me” usually being subtext is what got me to first watch this show.

In general I have a lot of issues with how they handled Irene. But I especially don’t think I get the nudity in this scene. It reveals to Sherlock immediately that his ruse was all in vain since she either a) knew he was coming anyway or b) usually greet priests in distress while stark naked and might therefor just be stark raving.

Unflappable John Watson. Oh dear, my flat mate who I just beat up is sitting in front of a naked dominatrix with his vicar collar between her teeth. “I’ve missed something, haven’t I?”

He doesn’t like being a third wheel either. “I had tea too! Just so you know. In case you thought Sherlock got tea at the palace by himself. I was there too. The tea was lovely. Just the right temperature.”

Dammit.

Now I want tea.

Wait wait wait! When did John put his “date” shoes on? Only time it makes sense is when Sherlock was looking through his disguises. (He definitively wouldn’t wear them to traipse around the muddy crime scene.) Maybe they’re part of his “battle uniform”? Also obviously Sherlock can only “deduce” date because he knows what shoes John wears on dates. This isn’t really clothed people are easier to deduce.

How is he not deducing the heck out of her make up and ear piercing? Is it because she’s acting so extraordinary that her indicators become harder to contextualise?

Or is that whole thing just a plot hole?

And her comes her actual opening chess move. Nudity and banter was just setting up the pieces.

“Somebody loves you.” She pressed John’s big red “DO NOT PRESS” button right away. Later she says Jim told her how to play the Holmes brothers, but he definitively gave some pointers on John as well.

There’s something about John’s facial movements when Irene says he knows exactly where to look. Hard to compare with the sheet scene because of the different angles. But yeah, John is bi.

“You do borrow my laptop” with such an angry glare.

Wait are Irene’s shoes those shoes that are expensive because they’re red on the bottom? (I do not care enough to google their names.)

And it’s when John starts to smile that Sherlock does his verbal keysmash. Officially Ben said it was because Irene was paying attention to John instead of him, but she does that a number of times previously and has had quite a moment of getting cosy at John. But up until then John has been a bit standoffish. Of course you can only take so much of a pretty lady flirting with you before your smile reflex gets activated. Also he whips his head immediately at Sherlock in medical concern for his friend and Sherlock can speak clearly again.

Sherlock thinks he knows her game now as he makes his move getting her to confirm that the pictures are in the room.

Imagine the egg on his face if John hadn’t managed the smoke alarm in time.

“Amazing how fire exposes our priorities” should be part of a collection of lines that are only said once but thematically repeated throughout the show.

Some would argue maybe “I really hope you don’t have a baby in there” could be added but I don’t think it could be considered as repeated enough thematically.

Sherlock being his usual demanding self about turning off the fire alarm. The fool! Doesn’t he know how hard fire alarms are to turn off? (Maybe just a problem for me...)

Okay sure, easy enough with a gun, but impractical as a long term solution.

Umm, excuse me why does he go “no disrespect but you were clearly born in the 80s” in an episode from 2012? The most she’d be is 32, so clearly she looks at most like that then. Why would she be insulted by that? Also he earlier called a dude unhealthy, stupid and with bad breath in front of him without clarifying level of respect. So basically he’s needling her by adding that. That’s the most positive spin it can get.

John apologising for not stopping /forewarning about a whole bunch of trained killers sweeping in? That is diehard loyalty.

She’s staring hard at him as fire exposes his priority.

She actually does give him a clue by looking down the moment he looks at her. Never thought of that.

He heard something click wrong, looked at her for additional clue so she looks to the side “get out of the way”.

I love that John’s priority is medically inclined in the action scene, checking the vital signs of the guy that got shot.

“Observant?” “Flattered?” Honestly he shouldn’t be so surprised by the first bit as it was obvious some kind of observation + deduction got Sherlock the code.

As usual Sherlock gives zero fucks about gun safety. I feel John at some point is going to tie him down and lecture him about it. “We do not scratch our heads with the barrel of a gun, and we don’t call for the police by shooting in the air!”

You know if you’re knocking him out cold regardless, you don’t need him to drop the phone first. You just wanted the beating to be literal.

“He’ll be fine. I’ve used it on loads of my friends.” Yeah no, tell the doctor what chemical knockout drug you just put in a former drug addict!!

I wonder how much of dream Adler is actual Adler speaking to a drugged out Sherlock.

Could be nothing with the only real part being “hush now, returning your coat”. Would make sense for a dreaming brain to jumble the two cases together.

Start of series 2 we get to see Sherlock’s bedroom while John’s remain a mystery after 4 series.

John is not on the top of his game this episode. “What woman?”

And so it begins.

Mycroft does not have “shut up Hudson” privilege.

That whole phone noise discussion is punctuated with embarrassment.

Ah the gaping jaw that set the sails for the lestrolly ship.

“Christmas is canceled!” I love when John banters with Sherlock.

Sherlock is mean to Molly, but to be fair she kind of blundered a bit with the others and Sherlock complaining about John being away was clearly something he told in confidence. Telling Greg and John that their loved ones are betraying the trust put in them is general misanthropy, but Sherlock probably feels justified in needling Molly about a crush that he figures none of them know anyway.

Oh John’s look there. Greg clearly knows too what is coming but John has the recognition factor.

“Oh shit. It was me. Still me? She still has a thing for me?”

For a sort of dramatic moment it still has one of John’s absolutely funniest facial journeys. “Wait, you apologised? You know what an apology is? Are you feeling well?”

Obviously Irene’s text signal gets a lot of funny moments, but nothing will beat the timing of this one. And now I am imagining Jim with a pair of binoculars sitting across the street and telling Irene “now, send it now, it’ll be fucking priceless!”

And Greg “wait really?” When you’re not sure what your consultant can do to surprise you next.

I believe I made a post about it earlier but Jeanette’s boyfriend just said he’s been keeping track up till 57 on text messages that his platonic flat mate gets where the signal is a woman moaning.

“Do you ever reply?”

Jeanette starts working on her break up speech about then, I believe.

Molly nervously gulps a drink. Now Molly is everyone’s favorite John mirror. Medical professional with a crush on Sherlock, and whose favored type of outfit involves knitwear. John usually takes a drink at emotionally difficult times. Is this Molly handling her rejection, or showing what John is doing/will do without showing John?

Mycroft. If they passed a new law why would Sherlock know about it before you?

“How did Sherlock recognize her from... not-her-face?”

Mycroft answers with a smile and leaving the room.

“I got plans”

“No” I know you. If it’s a date you’ve probably bungled it already. Regardless if it is or isn’t you’ll still prioritize my brother because you always do.

John really goes for the superconfident strategy when dating, huh? “I always thought I was great.”

“I’ll even walk your dog!”

“I don’t have a dog!”

“No, because that was the last one...”

Always thought you were a great boyfriend, huh?

When even your landlady who got out of her marriage through execution thinks you bungled it, you probably bungled it.

Think I’ll break here and continue the rest of the episode tomorrow.

[dweemeister]

Frozen II (2019)

Six years ago, Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee directed Frozen, a film that became a pop culture phenomenon destined to induce musical madness for anyone who needed to babysit a child. I contended in 2013, as I do now, that Frozen had the best-looking CGI for a Walt Disney Animation Studios film at that point in Disney history and its musical score by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez a great asset. Let me get a few other unpopular opinions (at least, on tumblr) out of the way now. As the 2010s close, Frozen still has the best musical score and original song (“Let it Go”) of any Walt Disney Animation Studios film released in the twenty-first century (the century is still young). Due to overexposure and criticisms borne out of bad faith, social media turned on Frozen quickly. But I think one thing yours truly and Frozen’s harshest critics can agree upon is how little did we know that Frozen would be as successful as it has become, how it crossed cultural and linguistic barriers that other films in the recent Disney animated canon could not.

When its sequel was announced by now-disgraced John Lasseter (Lasseter served as producer but is uncredited on Frozen II), the weight of expectations hoisted upon Buck and Lee (who wrote the screenplay) must have been tremendous. As Lasseter often said in the mid-2010s when announcing a Disney or Pixar sequel, he claimed that a Disney or Pixar sequel only comes to fruition when, “the filmmakers who created the original have created an idea that is so good that it’s worthy of [the] characters.” Frozen II is a gorgeously-animated film that misfires on its characterizations and plotting, but deserves partial credit for attempting to communicate a worthy message to those children – some who are just now navigating the confusing years of teenagehood – who fell in love with and have repeatedly watched the 2013 original.

Time has passed since we last saw our heroes, Anna (Kristen Bell) and Elsa (Idina Menzel) of Arendelle. Little has changed in Arendelle in those years, with Kristoff and his reindeer Sven (Jonathan Groff as both) presumably still harvesting ice and Olaf (Josh Gad) basking in the fact he has a magical coat of permafrost. One evening, Elsa (and only Elsa) hears a siren in the distance, emanating from the north’s Enchanted Forest – which is surrounded by an impassable mist. A substantial but manageable disaster disrupts life in Arendelle shortly after the mysterious call, forcing the protagonists towards the Enchanted Forest. There, they meet a lost Arendellian military unit that has been in constant warfare with the Northuldra tribe since around the time Elsa and Anna’s parents have been missing. Elsa and Anna help the factions agree to an armistice. Amid this peace, Elsa travels even further north to confront her family’s past to understand her unsettling present.

Frozen II’s greatest failing is, surprisingly, not Jennifer Lee’s tiresome insistence on impossibly frequent humor and dialogue that sounds as if the characters have been airlifted from contemporary America – though there is plenty of both in this film. Instead, it is an elementary building block to any art that attempts a narrative: understandable, meaningful motivations. With Elsa, she journeys northward on little else but a hunch and bedtime stories imparted to her during her childhood – flimsy reasoning at best. For Anna, she apparently has become paralyzed in the fear of disrupting how she and her sister have been interacting with each other and their lives in Arendelle. Lee needs to imbue Anna with depth here, as it is unclear exactly what Anna fears losing most. Kristoff accompanies Anna and Elsa because he wants to offer marriage to the former, doing so with the competency of a Sous-chef asked to perform a coronary artery bypass. My apologies to any Sous-chefs with medical experience. And, oh yes, Olaf goes along because Disney needs to make that sweet green.

Lee also cannot help but pack her screenplays with exposition. If this is any indication of how intelligent she thinks moviegoers are, the results are not flattering to anybody. There are worthy ideas in this screenplay, yet they are obscured by plot contrivances needed to position characters in certain spots that reeks of narrative convenience or thematic cold feet. An idea that seems to have been inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender does not inspire additional confidence, but perhaps a few guffaws and rolled eyes. The Northuldra tribe are inspired by the Sámi people, an indigenous people native to northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland as well as far northwestern Russia. Frozen II dances around the idea of having something to say about imperialism – in terms of cultural/racial supremacy, coercive diplomacy by gun barrel or bayonet, environmental exploitation – but declines to do so.

Elsewhere, Olaf’s characterization is still that of the buck-toothed, boisterous goofball that he is. But unlike the first Frozen where Olaf exuded childish silliness, he is spouting philosophical claptrap that will pass over the heads of children. Frozen II is preening here: “Hey, parents showing your children Frozen II! You’re smarter than your grade schooler; isn’t that hilarious!?”

This contempt extends to a late scene where Lee’s screenplay has Elsa scoff at a reference to “Let It Go”. The moment, brief as it is, is as perplexing as it is infuriating. Assuming that it is supposed to be played for laughs, why would Chris Buck and Lee think that those who despise 2013′s Frozen care to watch this sequel? Why would they think that, for the children who adored Frozen upon its original release and since then (while probably encountering few people bashing on the film), that moment would be the slightest bit humorous? Considering the number of people – even if it is only one person in the world (I’d wager everything including the kitchen sink that the actual number is higher) – who found inspiration in “Let It Go” and its use in narrative and character development context, how could they be so disrespectful to those individuals as well as Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez? Perhaps this is rabblerousing over something insignificant, but it seems to exemplify a level of contempt the filmmakers have for elements from the previous film and, potentially, the audience willing to watch the sequel.

Every Walt Disney Animation Studios film released since Winnie the Pooh (2011) has treated tropes introduced in the older Disney animated canon in similar fashion. Disney history, even for a film made six years ago, is a punchline, not to be celebrated or engaged with critically. The Walt Disney Company of 2019 is one preferring to bury its past (this also includes the companies it has acquired). If there, like in the early 2000s, is a war for the animation studio’s soul, it is playing out in how these films are being made.

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez’s sufficient musical score is worse, title-by-title, when compared against the 2013 original. “All Is Found” feels out of place in this film because of its orchestration – this is the only song in either Frozen film using Nordic instruments and inspired by Nordic folk music. As interesting as this song is lyrically (and for how those lyrics play into what eventually occurs in this film), it suffers from the same problem plaguing “Frozen Heart” from the first film in that they are just too musically detached from the showtune style that the Lopezes bring to Frozen II. “Some Things Never Change” lays out the subtext and the film’s dramatic irony too obviously, and Groff’s silly vocals to imitate what Sven would sound like is a juvenile decision. Shortly after, “Into the Unknown” – which features the voice of AURORA as the mysterious Dies Irae-like voice that only Elsa can hear – is sung by Elsa with bombast. As talented as Menzel is, “Into the Unknown” is overproduced, contains an excessive amount of vocalizations, and has no business being the third song sung within the opening twenty or twenty-five minutes of a film. The early placement of “Into the Unknown” creates pacing issues in the film’s first half from which it almost does not recover.

In the film’s second half, we find Kristoff a frustrated figure, unable to find a moment to pop Anna the question. In the film’s acid trip of a musical number, Jonathan Groff, as Kristoff, is given a 1980s power ballad named “Lost in the Woods” for curious reasons. “Lost in the Woods”, for reindeer-related reasons, is the most entertaining number in Frozen II, but, like “All Is Found”, makes no musical sense – it is framed as a homage to multiple 1980s power ballad music videos that one could have found on MTV in that decade. Maybe the part of me that is irritated by the swathe of 1980s nostalgia sweeping American popular culture right now is being hypercritical, but I will acknowledge that – when listened to divorced of narrative context – “Lost in the Woods” is a fantastic musical homage. Frozen II’s thematic parallel to “Let It Go” is actually “Show Yourself”, not “Into the Unknown”. It is yet another song demanding much from Menzel and has been subordinated by, presumably, Disney marketers and executives.

Before mentioning the film’s final song, the Lopezes should be praised for steering the plot away from stormy waters, lending a needed course correction to an otherwise hapless screenplay. “All Is Found”, “Some Things Never Change”, and “Show Yourself” provide a necessary musical boost that might otherwise have contained even more tedious exposition. To Frozen II’s credit, the story’s second half is unexpectedly, but never unjustifiably, melancholic. The best song on this soundtrack just so happens to provide the greatest narrative boost to Frozen II in the film’s darkest moments. “The Next Right Thing”, echoing a line repeated a few times from different characters, is a musical and thematic triumph. The song, eschewing lyrical/poetic meter (this is a radical decision; very few songwriters in the history of Broadway musicals and Hollywood would dare to even compose one song with no identifiable lyrical meter), literalizes how one carries on in the midst of depression and loss. Bell cries rather than sings some of the song’s lines, but, given the lyrics, it is deserved.

Through "The Next Right Thing” and what transpires to the film’s conclusion, Anna and Elsa – in their distinct ways – learn how to answer the most baffling questions children and adults will ever face. How does one regain their bearings when one’s peers and loved ones all seem to be changing into something unrecognizable? How can the tragic decisions of the past be resolved depending on who made those decisions? I’m not saying Frozen II is an articulately-crafted drama examining the human condition, rising to the heights reached by cinema’s most celebrated auteurs. but it is at least attempting to pose difficult questions to its audience – and yes, to the children and teenagers that have and will grow up with Anna and Elsa and company – that numerous other animation films from other major American studios would dare not attempt. The bar may not be high, but the filmmakers – and yes, the Lopezes – provide a small, yet necessary, lift.

For the Walt Disney Animation Studios, what has been deemed the “Disney Revival” in some quarters has been predicated on the company’s financial strength over the 2010s, ignoring how distractingly metatextual and behaviorally contemporary these recent films have been. If one is looking for 2010s animated films reflecting and extolling humanity’s goodness and/or affirming cultural and ideological empathy, do not look to the major American animation studios for these qualities. In some future year, may those audiences looking back on the films that they cherished as children take inspiration in Anna and Elsa’s courage when facing life’s uncertainties. May they teach a few grizzled movie fans to see something that only they could because of their youth.

My rating: 6/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[engekihaikyuu]

My thoughts on the new Engeki Haikyuu, Winners and Losers!!! Details under the Read More to avoid spoiling anyone who would rather wait until the DVD release.

With a 3+ hour play, it’s hard to do a detailed summary that goes scene by scene because I know I’ll forget about something or mix up order of events, so I mostly want to go over the major themes and particular scenes and characters that stuck out to me. If you have questions for any other character or how a specific scene played out, please feel free to ask! One of the main bits of thematic imagery used this time around was wind as well as the obvious one of music, which we’ve seen in dress rehearsal footage. They went with something of a wind theme for Aoba Johsai, with projections that show gusts of wind flowing across the stage with leaves flying on it, sometimes the breeze animation will shift into twisting, curling vines. Hinata has a couple of dream sequences in the play where he’s buffeted by those winds, and he repeats: “There’s a wind blowing. Sometimes it’s with you, sometimes it’s against you.” Kenma is in the dreams as well (sometimes with a cat head), warning Hinata to not get caught up in that wind, but also implicitly reminding him that he needs that wind to fly.  No seriously, the dream sequences were meant to be surreal and weird. This results in a line that Hinata says to Kageyama that is unique to the stage play. “Kageyama, let’s ride the wind!” And to go along with that theme and those images, there are several moments throughout the play where Kenta is strapped into a bungee that hangs down from the ceiling (once, Kageyama is strapped into a bungee of his own) and them he will literally go flying around the stage, taking massive leaps as they run around. Sometimes he’s hooked into a lifting harness and it’ll pull him just straight up into the air where he’ll even just flip around on them like an aerial acrobat to show how high he can “fly.” I personally really enjoyed this added thematic element to this match. I always enjoy when a new version of an existing work interprets the source material in creative ways to work specifically with the new medium, and Engeki Haikyuu is always excellent about fully utilizing THEATER-SPECIFIC effects and humor. It does things with the story you’ll never see in the anime, things that don’t read right in illustrations, and I’ve always held a deep appreciation for the creative collaboration this show has been. When it comes to the music theme, it’s there for both teams, but much less so for Karasuno, since Aoba Johsai is meant to be the image of a smooth orchestra, and Karasuno is still a little haphazard as a team. Every single piece of Seijoh’s choreography and music reflects the orchestra theme. Their movements are always elegant and smooth, and now they feature a lot of ballet movements. Aoba Johsai is meant to be classical music, Karasuno is a rock band trying to figure itself out lol. And of course that ties into the setters because Oikawa is that model orchestra conductor. When Suga is on the court, it’s like he’s directing a jazz band. Fun and upbeat, mostly in sync, but not Seijoh’s elegance. For Kageyama, it’s difficult to get the hang of the conducting, he doesn’t quite know how to lead the team in a distinct choreography line Suga can, but that also highlights how hard the team is working around Kageyama to try to follow the pace he’s setting. So following that I want to talk about Kageyama because I must have cried for about three of his scenes at least. They feature a lot of flashbacks for him, including the middle school mid-match rejection we’ve seen before, as well as the scene from middle school where he asks Oikawa to teach him and nearly got punched instead. These flashback scenes are done a few times each, with the narration and POV switching between characters, and when it’s Kageyama’s POV, he is unbelievably hurt when Oikawa rejects him the way he did. He gets so caught up in that memory, remembering that he then decided he would simply have to become better than Oikawa, and this is when his conducting gets super erratic and his plays start getting sloppy. Sometimes the King of the Court will appear on stage (a secondary actor wearing the crown and the cloak) and Kageyama will see him and turn away in fear. Just before he’s benched and Suga takes the court, he grabs the King by the shoulders screaming at him, “NOT YOU! NO! GO AWAY!” They show him physically rejecting this haunting memory of the setter he used to be, and honestly, it’s super heartbreakinggggg. Heart-wrenching moments also go to Suga of course, but I always found them most GUHHH when his own insecurities are directly tied to still being a good senpai to Kageyama. And I feel like the stage play acknowledges this much more than the manga and the anime, because they give Suga and Kageyama so many moments together. The stage play better shows Kageyama’s admiration of Suga and also his appreciation of him, as the setter senpai who doesn’t reject him the way Oikawa did. Over and over the two of them share this one line of dialogue where Suga gently reminds Kageyama that their team is strong and he’s not alone. He can depend on them. Suga: What do we say about our team? Kageyama: Everyone is very strong. Whenever Suga is on the court they give a LOT of attention to third years and how overjoyed the three of them are to play together. Daichi and Asahi are extra animated and take center stage with Suga as they play, and it’s sooooo sweeeet!!! They do also include flashbacks to the third years when they first joined Karasuno, and this is done by the three seconds years wearing face masks of the older three. Kazuma/Ennoshita plays younger Suga, Kouhei/Tanaka plays younger Asahi, and Shouhei/Noya plays younger Daichi. Hilariously, Shouhei has like a cushion or something stuffed up his shirt to give him Daichi’s broad chest and then he also just sticks that chest out constantly and I could not stop laughing. THE TOBIUO. A scene where I laughed WAY longer than I should have was when Tsukishima and Tanaka make the flying fish joke with Kageyama’s name. What you don’t see is everyone else covering Kageyama from view as he puts on AN ACTUAL RIDICULOUS BLUE FISH OUTFIT and then he awkwardly hops forward screaming that he’s not a fish. And just when I thought to myself, wow, I can’t believe they made him a fish outfit for this 2 second joke, HE THEN KEPT IT ON FOR THE ENTIRE NEXT BIT OF CONDUCTING CHOREOGRAPHY, FLAPPING HIS FINS TO LEAD THE TEAM IN A ROUTINE FOR A SOLID 3 MINUTES??? BEFORE HE WADDLED OFF-STAGE TO CHANGE. I cried at that. Another sequence of scenes that I found super emotional was everything leading up to Yamaguchi’s failed serve. They show him asking Shimada, training with him, etc… but they also tied in Tsukishima more closely. They show Yamaguchi telling Tsukki he has something else to do and running off, and Tsukishima acting very rejected. During the Seijoh match, during a timeout, he and Tsukki share this dialogue. Yamaguchi: It looks rough out there. Tsukishima: Well obviously. Standing on the court for a while is tiring. Yamaguchi: But… I’m still envious. Of everyone. I want to stand on the court too! And as Yamaguchi stands there, his back to Tsukki as he admires the team, Tsukishima reaches out and says Yamaguchi’s name to tell him something BUT THEN THE WHISTLE BLOWS and they have to resume play. I have never been more frustrated omg because that extra “Yamaguchi!” is not in the manga or anime and my heart was just screaming WHAT WERE YOU GOING TO SAY?!?!?? As for adorable cute, time to talk about Kuroo and Kenma. Because oh my god. I know a lot of you know by now that Takato and Shouri cross dress to play Oikawa fangirls during the match, but they have about FIVE MILLION costume changes???? They’re CONSTANTLY running off the stage to change into Kuroo and Kenma and coming out on stage for flashbacks or Hinata dream sequences or to serve as visual reminders for Kageyama and Hinata as they remember playing with them. They’re constantly implying that the setters always have that one spiker that they trust and always toss to. For Kenma, that’s Kuroo. For Kageyama, it’s Hinata. For Oikawa, it’s Iwaizumi. For Suga, it’s Asahi. Kuroo frequently circles Hinata as Kenma circles Kageyama to play up that parallel. And then they run off stage to put the skirts and the extra hair pieces back on… I mean, I lost count of the costume changes after ten. As girls, they did a personality switch so Takato is the friendly, outgoing girl who is always pulling Shouri along and engages in conversation with Shimada about the game and the plays they make. Shouri is the shy one who trails behind or is scared of talking to Shimada and the one who gets super flustered and squealy. These two are the source of the humor most of the time because the players have a lot of drama going on obviously. When they first get on stage as girls, Takato asks, “Did you get taller again?” Shouri, super chipper, and with his voice pitched up, goes, “Now I’m 187cm tall!” They also show up at the end of the first intermission to open the second Act as Kuroo and Kenma. Kuroo STRUTS onto the stage and dramatically gestures for everyone to clap, and then he SNAPS to make everyone stop and just goes, “That’s goood~” Then he tries to do the Nekoma chant but gets to the brain line and goes, “Wait! The brain isn’t here! Kenma!!!” Then Kenma walks onto the stage playing a game and Kuroo tells him to switch it off, so Kenma turns to the audience. “Since I have to turn off my game, if everyone else in the audience could also please turn off your cell phones and refrain from—“ Kuroo: “Who are you talking to?” And Kenma keeps giving general viewing instructions and Kuroo keeps being weirded out because obviously “There’s nobody there.” But then Kenma keeps trying to break the fourth wall and keeps asking Kuroo taboo questions. Kenma: Say, Kuroo… why are we the only Nekoma members— Kuroo: That’s taboo!!! Kenma: What about those girls— Kuroo: ALSO TABOO; DON’T SAY IT!!!! Obviously these are supposed to be the girls that originally came to cheer on Oikawa but as they continued to watch the match, they started rooting for Karasuno too. Towards the end of the third set, Takato shouts, “Aoba Johsai, Karasuno… Both of you do your best!!!” And then Shouri starts PULLING UP HIS SKIRT to show his Nekoma uniform underneath and shrieks, “NEKOMA, DO YOUR BEST TOO!” and Takato has to pull his skirt back down while screaming that that was especially taboo!!! Shouri spends the rest of their scene there with his pink skirt pulled up awkwardly around his chest because of the way he pulled on it, and it was SUPER DISTRACTING. And um… uhhh…. I’m leaving out so much, there was so much going on, but this is so long and… I woke up at 4am because of jetlag and instead of going back to sleep I started writing this so... I’ll make other posts as I remember more and feel free to ask!!!

[counttotwenty]

I agree with you 100% on your comment on Liza's response to those freaking out about Hook being left out. Unfortunately the people I've seen actually complaining are saying that the proof is on the screen for them too. Barely any Hook and he's only to serve the purpose of other characters, and A&E don't care about him. Sure, I want to see him way more and he's definitely been underused lately. But damn?? A couple bad episodes and it's the end of the world and the writers hate Hook??

Here’s my thing–I love literary and structural analysis like Linus loves his blankie. It fascinates me. It enhances my enjoyment of a show. But that kind of analysis demands–to some extent–an objective eye.

It’s a very, very different monster than speculation.

I can’t even begin to count the number of asks I get from people who say–here’s my theory and here’s a list of things I think point to it being true. And I can tell just by reading that the theory came first and then they went cherry picking for information to back it up.

That’s not how analysis works. You always need to analyze forward–never backward. But listen–I’m not here to be anyone’s dream killer or to rain on anyone’s parade. Speculation is fun and people should turn their imagination loose and see where it takes them.

But they also need to not lose sight of the fact that it’s just speculation. The story may very well go in a totally different direction.You can’t get so attached to your spec that if things don’t happen the way you theorized you consider them “wrong”.

And when I’m reading about specific lines or singular pieces of blocking being used to bolster a theory of where the story is headed–I’m sorry but no. That’s not how it works.You can’t cherry pick.

The piece has to be viewed as a whole.

So many times people jump to conclusions based on wildly broad parallels such as trying to equate Snow and Charming’s path to love with Hook and Emma’s.Since thus and such happened with characters A&B then it’ll be repeated with C&D. That’s a parallel. Well yes and no.

All fairy tale love stories are going to have certain points in common. That doesn’t make them parallel and it is certainly not an indicator of what’s to come.

You need to step back and look at larger thematic parallels to get an idea of where things are going.

Look people can have their opinions on what direction the show is headed in and they can be displeased and expound on the reasons why and that’s fine. You do you. But what makes me grind my teeth is their insistence that “it’s all right there on the screen.”

No, it isn’t. From a strictly structural viewpoint it isn’t.

I understand frustration with a storyline. I feel it all the time myself. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still look at what’s onscreen and see what path the writers and creatives are on. Just because I might not like the way a certain storyline is progressing doesn’t mean the characters are acting OOC and the writers have suddenly lost their talent or gotten their hate on.

What I see being bandied about regarding the marginalization of Hook is just not supportable by the evidence on the screen. 

OUAT is an ensemble drama. The nature of ensemble drama is that most of the characters are going to alternate between front and back burner storylines. Everyone does their turn as the exposition fairy. Everyone gets a turn to serve as counterpoint. It’s the nature of drama.

I’d happily tune in every week and watch the Captain Swan show for an hour but that’s not what this show is about.

But if you can’t look at Captain Swan and see that it is the equivalent of shipper Nirvana and that very few other ships have it as good–or have ever had it as good–man I don’t know. And if you don’t believe the genuine affection A&E have for the characters of Hook and Emma is visible onscreen–I just don’t get it.

That’s just my opinion though. As we used to say back in day–your mileage may vary.